Pay-Per-Click No-No’s

January 15 / Chair 10 Marketing Team / filed under Pay-Per-Click

For this latest post, we want to take a close look at some of the most common problems we see across the board within pay-per click advertising. Let’s call them Chair 10 Marketing’s Pay Per Click No-No’s.

Pay-per-click advertising can be very effective if your company is going about it the right way. But if your company isn’t bringing its ‘A-Game’ to PPC, results can falter. Avoid these no-no’s, and you stand a much stronger chance of succeeding.

No Conversion Tracking

Far too often, PPC campaigns are set-up quickly without any consideration for ROI analysis down the road. In order to track what revenue results from PPC ads, full conversion tracking needs to be set up. Conversion tracking can consist of both form completion tracking as well as phone call tracking. With the right code on your website, you’ll be able to know what leads have resulted from PPC ads – and you’ll be able to track ROI for PPC, giving you a full picture of how effective your ads really are.

All Broad Match Keywords

By default, keywords entered into AdWords, for example, are broad match. While broad match keywords can be effective under the right circumstances, by and large other types of keywords, including broad match modifier, phrase match, and exact match make an account more effective. If a campaign is filled exclusively with broad match keywords, chances are you’re overreaching and overspending.

No Negative Keywords

In addition to having a good mix of keyword types, it’s important to have a strong set of negative keywords. Negative keywords are often forgotten because their importance may not seem readily apparent. Negative keywords provide an ability to advertise on the right terms while not getting caught up with tangential keywords that aren’t totally on target.

No Geo-Targeting

By default, Google targets ads to all countries and territories around the world. If you disregard adjusting your geo-targeting settings when your ads go live, they’ll be running all around the world. Sure, that may seem fine in some cases but the fact is that you’ll see more success with PPC ads if you refine that targeting. Under the Chair 10 Marketing roof, there isn’t a single campaign we manage targeting all countries and all territories around the world. Most commonly, a given campaign targets one or two metro areas. Campaigns with a wider scope could benefit from targeting more territory, say a country or two. Having said that, rarely will targeting everything Google has to offer at once make sense.

No Ad Copy Variety

Having good variety with ad copy allows you to determine what ad copy resonates most. Surprisingly often, campaigns only have one or two ad copy variants, leaving little room to determine what works and what doesn’t. Experimenting with ad copy gives you room to refine ad copy over time and ultimately provide an ad that will lead to more clicks and more conversions.

No Regular, Ongoing Optimization

Out of everything listed here, this is probably the most damaging item often forgotten. While it may be tempting to approach PPC with a ‘set it and forget it’ attitude, the most important work is done once the account has been put live and data’s available for analysis. This is where you beat out your competitors and achieve a solid ROI by continuous analysis, testing and improvement.